Success Stories

Our Program Partner in Eagle Butte, SD on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation has become a master in the art of student registration and distributing school supplies.

This year, our partner, Connie, enlisted the help of Wanda and Savanna to organize and distribute nearly 1,200 backpacks and supplies to their student body ranging from Pre-K to High School seniors!

Because the grades are spread out in various locations throughout town, they centralized the supply distribution so everyone would get their backpacks at the same location.

Parents first registered their children at the appropriate school building and then they were given a color-coded slip of paper to take to the Cultural Center so they could trade the paper for a backpack.

Parents and grandparents alike sporadically filled the cultural center to hand over their slips and select a bag for their student(s).

Grandma Judy brought in her 4th and 6th graders, E’Von and Eliza. Both girls were able to select the color they wanted and both chose dark green. They quickly sat down and went through their supplies to see what they had received. Judy was really appreciative of the items. She said, “They stay at the dormitory during the week, and this really helps.”

This wasn’t Connie’s first rodeo in distributing supplies. The school has been a partner for ten years and she made it a point to get her request in. Supplying nearly 1,200 students with bags and supplies can be very overwhelming. Connie added, “This is the only program that helps.”

Our partners know that families are busy, so they try to make the pick up as painless as possible. In this case, the bags were initially divided up into individual categories of grade-appropriate supplies. The variety of colors allowed the students to have some selection, so they could pick whatever best suited them.

If the families weren’t able to make the distribution on the two days that it was set up, they delivered the extras to the secretaries at the various schools. Each school would then pass the backpacks with supplies out to those students who were unable to receive one originally.

Connie concluded by saying, “If we didn’t have this there would be a lot of kids without. That’s hard on their teachers and their families’ pocketbooks.”